Re: Informix vs. Sybase vs. Oracle vs. (gasp) MS SQL Server

In article <347E6F62.1AAA_at_agd.nsw.gov.au>, Anthony Mandic <no_sp.am_at_agd.nsw.gov.au> writes
>David Williams wrote:
> Yep, thats what was being guarded against. The app could have
> been termed overly retentive for this reason. It had to be
> as failsafe as possible. If a connection failed the app was
> smart enough to be able to reconnection when possible and
> continue. If it died it could recover from its client-side
> created files. It didn't give up without a fight. But of course,
> this didn't mean that we became complacent.
>
  And this is the CHEAPEST application that will perform the task?   Remember most business custoemrs want cheap system...(every supplier   says that there system will work!!)   

>> Debug logs,screen messages.
>
> Yep, anything and everything.
>
>> >> So does Informix 4GL, with startlog() function, all errors are t
>> >> trapped by the Informix runtime library and logged.
>> >
>> > Good, thats the correct approach. Except that it only relates
>> > to the server side of things. You'd have to rely on core dumps
>> > (if on UNIX) and/or a debugger to debug a client app. Note that
>> > there are two basic scenarios, the app failing or the app working
>> > but doing the wrong thing. Which is harder to resolve?
>> >
>> Either is easy with debug logs. Switch on, get a trace, debug it.
>> Most debugging can be narrowed down to one screen operation by the
>> user, plaster with debug and that 's it.
>
> This is a point in time issue. But you have to work back thru
> the app to work out how it got into that state and how the
> data became incorrect. Often times it was as the result of
> some hairly written code in a module made by a programmer
> who either didn't have a proper grasp of what was required or
> didn't care.
>
  Which you have to do anyway, what's your point?

> Of course, we've drifted off topic now. But while we're here,
> how many others have designed apps to guard against problems
> and what measures did they take?
>
  No the app but the database.

• unique indexes
• not null
• we would have constriants if I had my way..

>-am
 

-- 
David Williams